There is a profound difference between a physical drawing, and an abstract, idealized geometric shape. You can't draw a mathematical circle with a pen...
You're confusing the number pi with its decimal representation. There are plenty of numbers to the left of pi, namely {x ? ? : x < pi}. Pi does not be...
We've been hearing this doom and gloom for decades. Centuries if you include Malthus. In the 1970's people feared global cooling. The doom and gloom n...
If you can make a drawing of a mathematical circle, more power to you. I wouldn't think I'd need to make this obvious point here. You can't define pi ...
You did do a computation. You gave a finite-length description of a particular real number. The numbers for which you can do that are the computable r...
Consider the integers as a model of time: ..., -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... Each integer has an immediate predecessor. You never arrive at "the ...
That notation is not supported by the axioms of set theory. It's meaningless unless there are a FINITE number of bracket pairs. You may indeed have {}...
Doesn't absence make the heart grow fonder? In which case, absence is a thing. I'm not only using wordplay. Absence is a thing. Suppose you come upon ...
Point certainly taken. I didn't really want to suppress @Pippin's perhaps interesting ideas. It's just that when someone invokes set theory and Russel...
I agreed that your argument is stronger without trying to define the empty set as the complement of the set of everything, since the latter provably d...
You fail to understand the argument. Surely no set contains anything that doesn't exist. What could that even mean? It would be a tighter argument sin...
Well your proof is busted there as Russell's paradox shows that there is no set of all sets. So there is no "set of anything," by which I understand y...
Ok! That's a direct answer. Not from @Tim Wood whom I originally directed the question to. But it's a response. You would say a wall is wrong, because...
Tim, you said there's no need for a wall. So do you think there's a need for a fence? What do you want to do about the existing 600 miles of fence? Te...
My original response was to @tim wood. He went on a diatribe against Trump then said there was no reason for the wall. Now please note that I am not a...
I've followed US-Mexican politics for forty years and lived in Mexico for four and a half years. I've been across the border in San Diego 60 times or ...
No that is not my argument. That's a strawman. The point is that the Dems' current rhetoric is seriously out of alignment with their rhetoric from whe...
The point being that the Dems are awful hypocrites on this issue. Take the "putting kids in cages" picture used against Trump, that turned out to be f...
Tim, Can you please put into context for me the Dems' former strong support for a barrier (fence, wall, whatever) over the past few years? For example...
Very nice post. A quibble. I just happen to be brushing up on ordinal arithmetic this week. Ordinal multiplication is defined backwards from our intui...
Bernie likes the North Korea deal. Isn't that interesting? The checkbox liberals are marching in lockstep against the concept of peace. It takes an in...
It's amazing how this is what passes for argumentation on a philosophy forum. Trump derangement syndrome. You can't see past your violent emotions. Co...
Not really, but for this discussion I take no position at all. Else I fall into the trap of defending Donald Trump. Why bother? I regarded him on elec...
He just made peace with freaking North Korea. That war's been going on as long as my lifetime. Now I wish he'd made human rights a condition of the de...
I went down to the demonstration To get my fair share of abuse -- The Rolling Stones So, what do y'all think of Robert De Niro saying FUCK TRUMP at th...
See you DO understand. You're just in denial. The day Hillary stood up on the floor of the US Senate and spoke passionately in favor of the Iraq war; ...
And Hillary was a dangerously bad woman. We could do this all day. I've said my piece and one person understood me, which is one more than usual in th...
Thanks much. This is the second time in two days that @Maw did the same thing, which is why I didn't bother to reply. Yes, my disgust with the state o...
What has the centrist consensus gotten us? A dozen illegal semi-covert wars, torture camps, and $20T in debt , attacks on free speech from the left an...
Trump derangement syndrome. But why did the Democrats rig their own primary process to nominate a corrupt, warmongering corporatist, and total politic...
Oh ok. I'm a lifelong liberal so I am actually more upset with the liberals these days, which is why my rhetoric skews anti-liberal lately The conserv...
Funny you should mention that. I'm a big fan of the NFL and I think Trump's really a jerk to pick a fight with the Eagles. It turns out (heard this on...
Maybe so. That's quite possible. But the public brouhaha was sparked by Rudy Giuliani making yet another inexplicable public utterance that makes Trum...
A little far afield from the thread topic. My original point is that one need not get their emotions jerked around by everything Trump says. As far as...
Those ideas are protected by the first amendment. If you don't get that, you don't get what this country is about. See the 1977 Skokie case. I'm with ...
Enjoy your partisan hysteria. I'd be the last to try to take it from you. You honestly don't see the threat to free speech and free thought from the l...
I lived through 1968 in the US so I'm immune to "the sky is falling" rhetoric about the shredding of the social fabric. 1968 is the year this country ...
They supposed nothing of the sort. This is historically incorrect. On the contrary, they assumed that future leaders would be venal, greedy, and no be...
I do too. Trump's a troll. You let yourself get trolled. A pardon's not relevant until he's convicted of a crime. That hasn't happened. Why not save y...
He's been prez a year and a half and still he lives rent-free in people's heads. Just let it go. He learned his craft as a reality tv star. He knows h...
A true nihilist would never bother to try to impress other people by publicly labelling themselves s nihilist. Any true nihilist must keep it to thems...
I've always taken this more as practical advice. Not only as you note that he's saying we shouldn't try to speculate on things we can't possibly ever ...
The Russell predicate x \notin x most definitely picks out a class: the class of all things that are not members of themselves. This class just doesn'...
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